Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
It was 1992 and Marge Geil had an idea.
She wanted to put on a country music festival in Sweet Home.
Her suggestion did not go over well.
“Everybody just went ‘pooh, that’s not going to happen,'” said Larry Johnson, one of the early volunteers in the event. “That was the general reaction.”
Geil was active in the Sweet Home Economic Development Group, which had been formed to try to stimulate a rebound in the local economy after the collapse of the timber industry.
Geil met Wynonna and Naomi Judd at a conference in the Chicago area and Naomi Judd got interested in Sweet Home’s dilemma.
“The Judds said that if the economic development effort ever got off the ground, they would come and perform,” recalled Coreen Melcher, another early participant.
Geil came back with a vision and others who bought into the plan figured they could put on a two-day event in which visitors could camp out and listen to the Judds and a lineup of less prominent country acts. Geil arranged a Portland Trailblazers alumni basketball game to raise some seed money and got things rolling, despite the doubters.
As it turned out, Naomi Judd couldn’t make it for health reasons, but Wynonna did – along with John Anderson and some up-and-coming artists – and it worked.
The first annual Oregon Jamboree, held Sept. 26-27, drew 6,000 people over the two days and raised more than $10,000 for SHEDG. Some 150 volunteers put in a total of 5,000 hours to make it all happen.
“She (Geil) got the Jamboree going as far as I’m concerned,” Melcher said. “She worked hard to make it happen and it did.”
Donna Poirier, another early volunteer, remembers working on the security detail during the early years.
“I remember not even having so much security,” she said. “I remember (during the second Jamboree) having to form a human chain to keep the crowd back when Brooks and Dunn went on.”
Fast-forward to 2006. The three-day Jamboree, held on the high school athletic field, with campers spread out on school campuses all over town, drew a sell-out crowd of 9,500 people per day to hear a line-up that included Gretchen Wilson, Carrie Underwood, Charley Pride and Randy Travis. Jamboree organizers had expanded camping by some 500 spaces since 2004, but the sites still sold out well before the event. Organizers reported late in the year that the Jamboree would net as much as $325,000.
“Thanks to the hard work of so many community volunteers, the Jamboree has become the premier country music festival in the Pacific Northwest,” said Kevin Strong, vice president of SHEDG. “It’s exciting to hear people from other communities say great things about Sweet Home because of the Jamboree.”
It wasn’t an easy road, though. The event went through a succession of directors before current manager Peter LaPonte took over in 1998.
After contracting with ProTours, a Nashville-based production agency, to produce the first two concerts, SHEDG decided to go it alone in 1994. The learning curve was high and the 1995 show was a financial failure. Despite appearances by Lee Greenwood, Earl Thomas Conley and others, the event lost more than $130,000.
SHEDG board members kicked in personal loans of $4,000 each and Linn County contributed $50,000 in matching funds to keep the Jamboree alive.
Things improved in 1996, when organizers were fortunate to book Tim McGraw and Faith Hill just as they exploded into superstardom. SHEDG was able to pay back board members’ loans and move toward financial solvency, but more trouble lay ahead.
The 1998 Jamboree was cancelled, mainly due to financial difficulties, and organizers had to pay off artists who had contracts to perform.
That’s when LaPonte, who had experience both as a professional drummer and as manager of a prominent Seattle jazz club, as well as other entertainment events, was hired in the late summer of 1998.
It was rough going, he remembers, in those early years. Every penny had to be accounted for, but he was able to book Reba McIntire for 1999, and things took off.
The Sweet Home Foundation, SHEDG’s charitable arm, has handed out more than $100,000 in grants to community groups since 2002, including $20,138 last spring, from Jamboree proceeds. The organization has set aside even more of its proceeds, and board members are weighing options on how to invest in the Jamboree’s future.
The greatest need, organizers say, is to find a larger facility for the festival, which has essentially outgrown the Sweet Home High School athletic fields, according to SHEDG leaders.
“With talent prices continuing to rise, we’re looking at land opportunities here in Sweet Home so we can grow the size of the festival in an effort to help cover ever-increasing talent prices,” said Strong. “We’re at the point where, in order to afford the talent, we need to grow the capacity of the festival.”
With local land prices reaching a premium in recent months, though, finding a seller who’s got the right size of land and is willing to part with it for what SHEDG can afford has been difficult, he said.
Meanwhile, though, the show will go on.
“Obviously, every year it just gets better,” said Poirier. “Peter’s an excellent leader, all of the supervisors know their jobs, all the ins and outs. Even the teams are like a well-oiled machine.
She said she makes it a point to talk to patrons each year and they tell her that they love the Jamboree more than any other similar event they’ve attended.
LaPonte noted that this year the Jamboree is recognizing volunteers who have helped with the show for the entire run. They are: Alice Burnett, Lester Byler, Vicki DeLong, Peggy Emmert, Kelly Gabriel, Patricia Gourley, Troy Hopper, Larry Johnson (who says he actually started in 1993), Margery Lillich, Bill and Judy Markert, Coreen and Jim Melcher, Daryl Nothiger, Donna Poirier, Penny Pratt, Darlene Vavrosky and Barbara Weld.
“A lot of people have stepped up to the plate to make the Jamboree what it is,” Strong said. “They deserve our thanks.” Lillich, who had just retired from her job as a bank teller, said she was skeptical at first when the idea of the Jamboree was broached.
“I thought it probably wasn’t going to happen,” she said. “But when they announced a date, I thought, ‘It’s going to happen. I’d better get involved.'” She volunteered to count money and wound up working in the Jamboree office, in space provided by Merv Hanscam, the second year.
“I’ve just loved, over the years, working with such a variety of people,” Lillich said. “It’s fun to look back and see what’s happened. It’s just gotten so fine-tuned. It’s marvelous that we’ve been able to work with such a good group of people who work together so good.”
Poirier agreed.
“It’s just amazing that we have that in Sweet Home,” she said. “We have top acts with mostly volunteers running it. Once we get a permanent facility it will be so much better.”